JW Player Module Advanced

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Changelog JW Player Module Advanced 4.10.0 :

^ Upgrade to JW Player 7.10.5.

JW Player 7.10 supports more DASH streams and features likes DVR windowed live streams, multiple audio tracks, and improved subtitles.
7.10 also adds a viewability api method that you can use to get the viewability of the player or listen to events to determine if the player was viewable during that event.

+ Streaming Updates

Added ability to display language with captions and audio tracks with DASH
Added support for DVR with DASH
Added support for multiple audio tracks with DASH
Added bitrate to quality labels with DASH to differentiate between levels with the same height but different bitrate
Added support for custom quality labels
Made general improvements to DASH streaming
Made general improvements to HLS streaming
Improved handling of Live stream completion by showing the end state

+ Flash Version Update

JW Player 7.10.1 requires Flash 18 or higher. Previous versions required 11.2 or higher. The change allows us to restore hardware accelerated video playback for HLS with Flash with minimal effort.
This fixes various issues with DVR streams and IE11 memory usage. Flash Plugin 25 is the latest version. Flash Plugin 18 is the last version to receive LTS security patches. Enforcing this requirement ensures greater security on sites that use our player.
Players on systems with Flash 11.2-17.x will no longer be able to use Flash. "primary: flash" will be ignored on these systems and html5 playback will be required.

+ Viewability

Added viewability information to all events coming from the player API.
Added a getViewable() method that will return 0 if the player is less than 50% viewable or 1 if it is greater than 50%.
Added config option “autostart”: “viewable” which starts playback on desktop devices when the player appears in view rather than on page load or via user click.

+ UI

Added config option “nextUpDisplay”: false to disable the “Next Up” tooltip
Added config option "qualityLabels": Use this configuration option to apply a custom quality label to a desired bandwidth in kbps, works for HLS and DASH.
Added support for timeslider thumbstrips on mobile
Improved default styling of captions

+ Advertising Updates

Created a new on(adschedule) event that displays elements of a parsed VMAP prior to ad playback, specifically the schedule of ads that should play.
Updated the on(adimpression) event with information from a parsed VMAP that can be tied back to the on(adschedule) event
Enabled the IMA config option “setLocale” for skip button language localization via “locale”: “de” in the advertising block. Two-letter language codes should be used.
Added a config option custParams to the advertising block for VAST. This allows passing custom parameters to individual ad breaks.


+ General Updates

Improved handling of VMAP breakstart/breakend events
Added support for autoplay muted on iOS Chrome

- Remove some old deprecated comment lines.

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Changelog JW Player Module Advanced 4.11.0 :

^ Upgrade to JW Player 7.11.2.

To optimize player performance, the UI is no longer packaged as part of the core player javascript in JW Player 7.11.0.
This decreases player load and setup time, especially when using controls:false,
which ultimately saves bandwidth and eliminates rendering of elements that are never used.

JW 7.11 also has some visual updates to the discovery overlay that improve performance and usability.
We have also extended HLS in HTML5 to IE 11 on Windows 8 and higher.

+ Updates

Moved player controls to its own script to be managed as its own module, or excluded to create a chromeless player, and updated the API accordingly.
Improved controlbar state transitions in the Seven skin by fading elements’ visibility.
Added functionality that seamlessly switches the controlbar UI when a manifest changes from live to DVR to VOD.
Changed the tooltip for the related playlist overlay to say “Discover” instead of “Related,” and updated its icon.
Added functionality that automatically displays the related playlist overlay after a video is paused for seven seconds.
Added ARIA labels to all buttons to be fully 508 compliant.
Updated captions support in Firefox and Internet Explorer to allow more styling control.
Improved captions rendering in IE11 and Firefox.

+ Advertising Updates

Improved VPAID 2 resizing in Vast plugin.

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Changelog JW Player Module Advanced 4.12.0 :

^ Upgrade to JW Player 7.12.3.

Designed with publishers of education and sports media in mind, JW Player 7.12.0 introduces a new configuration option to enable playback rate controls.
When enabled, a tooltip menu in the control bar gives viewers the ability to control the playback speed of the video.
Publishers can choose to show our pre-set rates or to configure custom values between 0.25x and 4x.
Developers can also use the new API getter, setter and event listener to control the playbackRate.
This release also includes native caption and subtitle support for casting.

+ Improvements

Added the playbackRateControls configuration option to enable the playback rate menu in the controlbar. This allows viewers to control the videos playback speed. Publishers may use default or custom speed values. When playing HLS streams on Android Chrome or using Flash, the menu will be hidden due to unsupported functionality.
Added setPlaybackRate and getPlaybackRate API methods and a playbackRateChanged event listener.Note that this is not supported in Flash or Android Chrome with HLS streams.
Added support for embedded and sideloaded VTT tracks in the default Chromecast receiver. Captions style configuration options are also applied to the receiver.
VTT tracks must be loaded from the same domain as the media.
Set the video elements title attribute so that the media title displays on iOS and Android lock screens during playback.
Updated 403 error copy to You do not have permission to access this content.
Expose the PROGRAM-DATE-TIME from HLS manifests in the meta event.
Improved manual quality switching in DASH streams so that when a viewer chooses a higher quality, the switch happens immediately. If the viewer chooses a lower quality, the existing buffer is played, then the quality switch occurs.
Added a new API method, setConfig, to set multiple properties at once. The following properties are supported: repeat, autostart, mute, and volume.
Added HLSjs debug output to the player’s debug logs. This is automatically enabled when jwplayer.debug to true.
Added the viewable event, making it easier to control the user experience based on the player’s visibility. Previously, developers had to rely on the viewable property in other events (eg. time, play) to know when the players is above the fold in the active tab.
Expanded HLS.js usage to Edge. This significantly improves the viewing experience over the native playback of HLS streams. Users can expect to see a reduction in artifacts, better captions display, and support for captions styling.
Improved the user experience of the sharing overlay. It s now less intrusive at larger player sizes, allowing playback to continue while the viewer makes a selection from the newly redesigned sharing menu.
Added support for multi-track captions in DASH streams, allowing viewers to select any of the captions tracks specified in a DASH manifest.
Added support for custom license request filters with DASH streams using Widevine or PlayReady.
Shaka provider has been updated to version 2.1.4.

+ Advertising Updates

Updated the adError event to note not just the original tag supplied to the player, but all tags in a wrapped ad chain including the creative that errored
Updated the handling of the creativeTimeout config option to address all mediafiles, not just VPAIDs
Improved mapping of FreeWheel AdManager events to JW Player events
Added a configuration option to allow a publisher to supply their own FreeWheel AdManager URL
Added clickThroughURL parameter to the adImpression event for the VAST plugin for parity with the IMA plugin.
Added config option custParams to the adBreak block for the VAST plugin for parity with the IMA plugin.
For the VAST plugin, updated the onadSchedule event to display all schedules, not just schedules within a VMAP.
Updated the VAST plugin’s ad event order to be consistent with the IMA plugin and more representative of the VAST/VPAID specs.
Added support for the SpotX ad_mute 1 URL parameter with the IMA plugin.
Added support for VAST macros including [CACHEBUSTING], [ASSETURI], and [TIMESTAMP]

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Changelog JW Player Module Advanced 5.0.0 :

^ Upgrade to JW Player 8.0.0.

Introducing JW8

JW Player 8 is our fastest and easiest-to-use player to date.
This major release debuts a completely redesigned, mobile-optimized user interface that can easily be customized to brand your player.
JW8 features smart content preloading and a smaller embed script, so viewers never see a buffer wheel and experience faster page loads.
To continue to offer publishers industry-leading support, we now officially support Facebook Webview and VAST 4, and have deprecated Flash.

General Changes

Updated the default player size to 640px wide x 360px high.
Upgraded hls.js to version 0.8.4, which enhances the stability of HLS playback in the player and improves HLS stream support.
Changed the default provider for HLS content on Chrome for Android from HLSjs to HTML5.
The player will now show a center display icon when the player pauses itself due to a failed attempt to play the video, providing more visual indication to the viewer that they need to manually hit play again. This is especially helpful in response to Safari 11, where autoplaying videos with sound are automatically paused on playback unless the user has changed the default browser setting.
Added the Cardboard mode icon to the idle state, so that when available, viewers can enter 360 mode before starting the video.
Added the ability to instantiate a player and immediately begin playback from a click on an element. By calling setup() followed by play(), the user interaction on the element is propagated all the way through to the instantiated player, eliminating the need to interact with the player to start playing media after it’s setup.
Bundled the most frequently used combinations of player assets (controls, media providers, and browser polyfills) so that all the Javascript needed to begin playback can be provided in fewer responses.
Improved handling of player asset loading so that users get feedback more quickly when a plugin, component, or non-essential asset fails to load. In the case of non-fatal errors, the player will attempt to recover gracefully. If a required component fails to load, the player will fail to setup and the user will be notified within 20 seconds.
Separated the core player to make our embed script significantly smaller, shaving off more than 100kb that no longer needs to be loaded and parsed before the player is set up.
Updated the preload behavior so only the first player on the page or viewable players preload when preload is set to anything other than none.
Improved the preload: metadata setting so that the player loads the manifest and buffers a maximum of one segment of media for HLS and Dash streams. MP4 streams load metadata only.
Improved preload: auto so that the player loads the manifest and buffers approximately 30 seconds of media. MP4 streams load based on browser behavior when the preload: auto attribute is set.
Updated the default preload configuration to do preload: metadata when preload is not set.

Support

JW8 does not support JW7 license keys. JW Platform-hosted JW8 players will automatically have JW8 keys. For self-hosted players: Your JW7 license key will still work with your JW7 player embeds, but it will not work with JW8. Every account will provide both JW8 and JW7 versions of the license key.
HLS, DASH, 360, and casting are now all supported in all editions of the player, including the Free edition.
The recommendations plugin is no longer supported in the Premium edition.
YouTube and RTMP formats are no longer supported in the player.
Removed the Flash provider from the open-source jwplayer project. Flash is no longer supported in JW Player and is only used to play HLS streams in IE11 on Windows 7.

API Updates

Added a getEnvironment() API method, which provides an object containing all browser and operating system information decomposed from the user agent.
Deprecated the primary configuration option. Flash can no longer be defined as a primary provider. The player will choose the appropriate provider based on the environment it's in and the media type.
Deprecated all jwplayer().onEventName events, Browser/OS util methods and player constants that follow the pattern JWPLAYER_*.
Deprecated the ability to toggle the state simply by calling play() or pause(). This change makes play and pause behavior more predictable in the API. Going forward, calling play() while media is playing does nothing, as does calling pause() when the player is already paused.
Changed the configuration options and API for using playback rate controls. In JW8, playbackRateControls is a boolean that toggles the visibility of playback rates in the global menu. playbackRates, a new optional config property, accepts an array of numbers which overrides the default playback rate options of 0.5, 1, 1.25, 1.5, and 2. This improves upon the first iteration of the feature, released in 7.12, where playbackRateControls controlled both the menu’s visibility and custom playback rates. This change is backward compatible and will not affect JW7 players upgraded to JW8.
Created a backward compatibility script so that custom code written against deprecated API functionality will continue to work when a JW7 player is updated to JW8.

User Interface Improvements

The control bar now uses flexbox, which simplifies the DOM structure and css. Icons are no longer grouped in left, center, and right divs.
Consolidated all control bar icons that had their own menus into a single settings menu, accessible via the gear icon in the control bar. This includes quality, audio tracks, captions and playback rate controls. Captions still has a dedicated icon in the control bar for accessibility reasons. The sharing menu has also been added to the settings menu. Like captions, sharing has a dedicated control bar icon that opens the settings menu to the sharing sub-menu.
Removed webfont-based icons and replaced them with inline SVGs. The following icons have been redesigned for JW8: live, quality, buffer, error, and rewind 10 seconds.
Changed all dock icons from being positioned in the upper-right corner to the control bar. The addButton API now adds buttons to the control bar. These buttons will be added to the right of the logo if the logo is present in the control bar.
Improved the timeslider behavior so there’s a visual indication when a user hovers or scrubs to a new playback position. We’ve also increased the touch target to make it easier to engage with the timeslider on touch devices.
Leveraged the timeslider as a progress indicator during ad playback by making it visible and positioning it below the control bar icons.

Skins

Added 11 new skin customization options in JW8. If supplied, the three customization options that were available in JW7 (skin.background, skin.inactive, skin.active) will map to the new options in JW8. Note that there’s no mapping to the new skin.timeslider.rail option.
Deprecated all JW7 skins. JW8 debuts our all-new default skin featuring a transparent control bar, tooltips, and a modern interface, which carry over to ads and audio only modes.

Accessibility

Added tooltips that appear on hover or focus over any icon in the settings menu, which increases clarity for viewers.
Improved support for keyboard navigation in JW8. Users can tab to advance through buttons and menu options in the player, and use the enter key in lieu of a click to take action on any focused item. The escape key can be used to close overlays and menus.

Logos

Added a new logo position option, “control-bar”, which places the logo in the control bar with an optional clickthrough link. Note: currently, all logos in the control bar render in a square container. A future release will support rectangular logos.
Deprecated the timeSliderAbove configuration option since it will be the only layout in JW8.
Updated the default logo margins to be 20px from the sides of the player.
Added maximum dimensions for logos. The height or width of a logo will not exceed 15% of the player’s height or width. The player will dynamically resize logos to fit within the height and width constraints so as to not obstruct the video.

Advertising Updates

Included the Skip button in the vpaidcontrols configuration’s functionality for the VAST plugin.
Included the duration present in the VAST XML on the adImpression event.
JW8 dropped support for VAST 1 as it has been deprecated by the IAB and has extremely low usage and a high risk of causing ad errors.
Added MediaFile compliance metadata from VAST4 tags to Vast plugin API events, including the reason the tag was not compliant.
Updated our Vast plugin to support playback of VAST 4 ad tags.
The following VAST 4 metadata has been added to Ads API events: UniversalAdID, Categories, ConditionalAd, as well as compliance with IAB guidelines on MediaFile setup.
Added support for m3u8 MediaFiles in ad tags in our Vast plugin.

^ Upgrade to JW Player 7.12.9.

+ Advertising Updates JW 7

Added support for Skippable Ads on iOS, with the caveat that ads cannot be displayed in the device's native fullscreen.
Viewers encountering an ad in fullscreen will be forced out and will have to manually re-enter fullscreen.
Note: there is a known issue with this functionality with IMA in Facebook webview that the IMA team has identified and is aiming to patch in an upcoming release.

+ Add Joomla! Update System support, new edition upgrade of the Joomla extension will be now announce in the backend, the upgrade process still require to login and download on joomlarulez.com.

^ Used folderlist xml list selection for JWPlayer version in backend, since folderlist Joomla issue has been resolved.

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Changelog JW Player Module Advanced 5.0.1 :

^ Upgrade to JW Player 8.0.10.

Core Player

Improved the design and interaction of the discovery and playlist overlay in small players, making it our most accessible overlay yet.The overlay now supports swipe interactions and keyboard shortcuts, making it easy to navigate between items. You can page through the list of items either by swiping left or right on touch devices or using the keyboard’s left or right arrows. The overlay can be closed using the escape key. Finally, you can tab through all the elements in the overlay and interact with them using the enter key.
Improved the user experience with new Discover and Playlist headings, which provide context for the discover and playlist overlays. The headings and the tooltips for the overlay’s icon in the control bar can be customized in a setup block with localization.related and localization.playlist.
Improved the autoplay experience on mobile by showing controls when playback starts. Previously, viewers could not control the video until they unmuted the video by tapping an icon in the lower right corner of the screen. Now, the mute icon will still appear in the corner when controls fade away, but tapping on the screen brings up the controls immediately.
Added a callback, onXhrOpen, which can be used to set custom XHR headers in HLSjs for AES-protected HLS streams. The callback gets executed after an XMLHTTPRequest is initialized and before the request is sent. withCredentials is unaffected by this change. If configured, it gets set before onXhrOpen is called. Refer to our configuration reference for implementation details.
Expanded HLSjs usage to Android Chrome, where it is now the default for HLS playback. This makes the HLS experience more feature rich and includes support for 608 and in-manifest VTT captions, as well as improved playback stability and support. HLS.js usage can be disabled by setting hlsjsdefault to false, which will result in the player using native Android HLS playback.
Improved our Discover recommendations engine by reducing the likelihood of a viewer seeing a repeat of videos they’ve already seen either by choice or via auto-advance. Items that are manually clicked will not be recommended again for 10 minutes, and items that are automatically advanced will be excluded for one hour.
All player editions using JW8 now support all HLS functionality, including AES encryption and 608 captions. DRM support remains an Enterprise-only feature.
To reduce clutter and avoid confusion, the JW Player build number has been removed from the right click menu. It was previously displayed for all non-production versioned players.

Ads

Added the ability to localize the “Loading Ad” message for IMA and FreeWheel plugins.
Added the ability to set the number of allowable redirects in IMA above the default for cases like header bidding.
For FreeWheel, added a new configuration option customadunitname that allows for specifying the SLAU query parameter for each ad break.
Updated the requestTimeout configuration option to apply to the IMAad plugin, where it previously only applied to VAST.

^ Upgrade to JW Player 7.12.11.

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Changelog JW Player Module Advanced 5.1.0 :

^ Upgrade to JW Player 8.1.1

+ JW 8 : Seamless Media Transitions

As JW Player continues to make strides to improve the viewing experience of video on the web,
our goal is to bridge the gap in the quality of experience between the web and cable TV.
Buffering is a reality of video on the web – we re committed to making that a thing of the past.
In 8.0, we improved our preloading so that videos now start instantly when the viewer clicks play.
However, viewers still had to endure video buffering after watching a pre-roll ad.
8.1 introduces even smarter preloading, resulting in a seamless transition from ads (including mid-rolls) to media.
In our preliminary tests, we ve seen huge improvements in time to first frame, even on slower connections.
The wait time for media to start playing after an ad goes from seconds in 8.0 to mere milliseconds in 8.1.
You re in for a treat with the upgrade to 8.1 and we can’t wait for your viewers to notice the difference.

+ JW 8 : Core Player

Improved the user experience when the preload configuration option is set to metadata (default) or auto.
Video content will now preload during ad playback, resulting in a seamless transition from pre-roll and mid-roll ads to the video content on most reliable connections. Players with preload set to none wont load content in the background. The visual quality and buffer events still fire in the same order as they always have, but before the play attempt event, instead of after play.

+ JW 8 : Ads

Updated FreeWheel ad plugin to include URL request parameters noting the stream is live vs VOD.
Improved the IMA ads UI to account for Google ads with built-in skip buttons, countdowns, etc.
Modified and improved adimpression/aderror events to include the full list of wrapped tags.

+ JW 8 : Add renderCaptionsNatively parameter, If true, captions render using the browsers renderer.
If false, the player's renderer will be used in all browsers, except for Safari.
Note: This configuration is not contained within the captions block.

^ Default Player to Cloud-Hosted 8.

- Remove stagevideo, ga.trackerobject, captions.back, cast.appid parameters for JW 6.x as it is a deprecated product.
- Remove CDN support for JWPlayer 6, all players are moved ot JW8 by default, CDN 7 is still suport as legacy.
- JW Player no longer supports in-feed video playback on Facebook, only thumbnail sharing will be displayed on Facebook.
- Remove JW5 player as it was only still used for facebook video sharing.
- Remove playlist5.php script as it was only used with JW5 and previous version.
- Remove some old deprecated comment lines.